Years ago, my parents set out on a long journey from their home city to a rural location in another country.

Approximately five minutes after setting out, a car went flying past them. It was a bright red sports model that was very eyecatching.

Not long after, they arrived at a toll bridge, right behind the same red car. They noted the number plate.

Past the toll, the red car sped off again, quickly accelerating well past the speed limit.

Over the next few hours, this repeated at a major junction. When they eventually arrived at the ferry again just behind the red car, my father flashed his headlights.

Disembarking, they got another flash from my father, and sped off.

Several hundreds of miles later my parents arrived at their destination, parked up, and got out to stretch, when pulling in beside them was a curiously familiar red car.

Not wishing to make assumptions, my mother casually checked the plates, then got saluted the driver and inquired about their journey to the event they had all arrived for.

Nope, they’d made no detours or stops, they’d taken the same route.

My mother has a way in these situations of wording things just so, that totally makes the person she’s talking to feel like an absolute worm without ever getting the escape of thinking my mother was being anything other than lovely and charming to them.

Red car was spotted driving most sedately in the local town the following afternoon.